International "Red", walks along Market Street, between 5th and 6th streets in San Francisco.

International "Red", walks along Market Street, between 5th and 6th streets in San Francisco.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Image 10 of 10

Market Street overhaul rethinks Mission too

1 / 10

Back to Gallery

Remaking one of the city's busiest streets could involve banishing buses from downtown Mission Street and redesigning the thoroughfare to make travel safer and easier for the city's growing number of cyclists.

The plan being studied by city officials is the newest of three alternatives for a $350 million Better Market Street project, which would remake the city's main boulevard into a designated transit corridor and transform the adjoining downtown sidewalks and plazas into inviting places for the hordes of workers, tourists and other visitors who jam into the area every day.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and improve San Francisco's premier street," said Mindy Linetzky, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Public Works, the lead agency for the project. "Market Street is San Francisco's main street. It should look and work like one."

The Mission Street option is a recent addition to plans for the Market Street upgrade, which were released last September. It's designed to deal with some of the problems raised by the original study, including the need for a pricey rebuild of Market Street curbs and adjoining utilities to accommodate a bikeway and the likelihood of dangerous conflicts between cyclists, vehicles and pedestrians where transit stops narrow the street.

Far safer ride

But eliminating buses from Mission Street and moving them to Market would make the changes much easier. Permanent cycletracks, separated from vehicles and pedestrians by a physical barrier, would be placed on Mission Street, allowing for a straight, flat, and uninterrupted bike ride that would be far safer between Van Ness Avenue and the Embarcadero.

The narrow, 9-foot-wide lanes on Mission Street already are a problem for Muni vehicles, which generally require 10 1/2-foot-wide lanes to operate, said Andrew Lee, a transit planner for the city's Municipal Transportation Agency. Moving the 14-Mission and the 14-Mission Limited to Market Street also could take advantage of the project's effort to speed transit along that corridor.

"Without the buses, we can time the traffic signals for cyclists, like we're doing on Valencia Street," added Kris Opbroek, DPW's project manager for the effort. "We could even reintroduce left turns on Mission Street," gaining the room for the left turn lanes by eliminating parking on one side of the street.

Bikes in the mix

Cyclists are a growing part of the city's downtown transportation mix, with an estimated 5,000 bicycles a day using Market Street. Moving most of those riders to Mission Street would both speed the commute for bus riders and provide a safer trip for cyclists.

Planners acknowledge, though, that there is a long-standing rift between drivers and cyclists in San Francisco, with each side charging that the other is receiving special treatment from the city. Efforts to make a major city street friendlier to bike riders will likely play into that dispute.

It's all about recognizing that different areas of the city have different characters, said Neil Hrushowy, an urban designer for the City Planning Department.

"The key to the city center is people," he said. "You don't go downtown to watch cars go by. If you design that area for cars, you undermine that feeling in what ... is the most democratic space in the city, with something for everyone."

The project, which isn't expected to break ground until 2017, will be the first major upgrade of Market Street since the underground BART and Muni Metro systems opened in the early 1970s. The two-year construction effort will include repaving Market Street from Octavia Street to the Embarcadero and is intended to transform the surrounding area into spaces where people want to linger.

Ambitious, expensive

It's an ambitious effort to redo the city's urban landscape, redesigning some of the best-known downtown landmarks to make them more appealing. One suggestion, for example, calls for filling the sunken section of Halladie Plaza at Powell Street Station and installing street-level cafes with more seating to "allow for rest and hanging out."

None of this comes cheap. Redoing the United Nations, Halladie and Embarcadero plazas will cost an estimated $75 million, and completing the new Mission Street alternative would add another $50 million to $75 million to the project's current $350 million price tag, Opbroek said.

The city is now in the middle of a $3 million planning effort for the Better Market Street project, with public meetings on the various alternatives expected this summer and work on the two- to three-year environmental impact report on the various alternatives slated to start this fall.

Nothing will get done without plenty of study and public comment, Opbroek said.

"The curbs (on Market Street) were built of granite and meant to stay," she added. "We don't take moving them lightly."

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.